New to the board and, to the best of my knowledge, this question hasn't been asked.

I'm in the process of getting stuff together to paint up my own teams; being on a limited income means I'll not be going down the collector route.

What I'd like to know is, has anyone ever tried out fine point permanent marker pens as an alternative to brushes and paints? Staetdler have a set of Lumocolor markers which are permanent on plastic, so they'd seem to be a reasonable choice for experiment.

I should point out that I'm very adept with brushes and paints, being a professional artist but anything to speed up and/or ease the process seems worthwhile to me.

i tried fine white markers for shirt numbers, it kind of works, but pens don't cope well with an undulating surface, nothing beats the control you have with a steady hand and 0000 scale brushes.

over the years i've tried to come up with various shortcuts, templates for the feet, masking areas, but to a very limited success. the only shortcut i can recommend is doing all the same area, eg do all the neck/heads at once then do all the arms, the eye/hand seem to learn after a couple and you get faster...but by the 11th-12th i find i am getting too fast and the precision starts to suffer so i take a break.

of course if you want an 'old subbuteo' kent style then get some cheap brushes and employ some child labour

Why do you want to speed up the process, are you envisaging painting a large number of teams at once ? I would have thought that painting would be quicker than using pens in the long run, due to the more fluid nature of it.

Why do you want to speed up the process, are you envisaging painting a large number of teams at once ? I would have thought that painting would be quicker than using pens in the long run, due to the more fluid nature of it.

Although I'm adept with using a brush, it's not usually on such a small scale; I tend to paint on big boards or canvas with medium to large - sometimes very large - brushes. Also, due to age and meds, my hands aren't as steady as they used to be and they tend to cramp up after a while.

The way I figure it, I'll have a little more control with possibly a little less effort than using brushes.

At least now I know it's feasible if not necessarily practical. I guess experience is the best teacher. Fortunately, when it comes to painting I still have all my old Humbrol paints and brushes.